Walter Salles Honors Women At The Heart Of ‘I’m Still Here’ As Brazil Wins First International Feature Oscar
Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here scooped the Best International Feature Film Oscar this evening, marking the first time that an entry from Brazil has won in the category.
Salles, who has repped Brazil four times now and was nominated for 1998’s Central Station, was greeted with a standing ovation amid loud cheers from the audience as he made his way to the Dolby stage.
More from Deadline
Once there, Salles first offered his thanks “in the name of Brazilian cinema.” Then speaking of the film’s subject, Eunice Paiva, Salles added, “This goes to a woman who, after a loss suffered during an authoritarian regime, decided not to bend, and to resist… And, it goes to the two extraordinary women who gave life to her, Fernanda Torres and Fernanda Montenegro.”
Torres, who was a Best Actress nominee this evening, plays Paiva throughout most of the film, while her real-life mother Montenegro plays Paiva as an older woman. (Keeping it in the family, Montenegro was the first Brazilian woman to be nominated for Best Actress — for Salles’ Central Station — while her daughter Torres is the second.)
I’m Still Here, which was also nominated for Best Picture, is Salles’ first feature in 12 years. Set in 1970 Rio de Janeiro and based on the memoir of the same name by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, it stars Golden Globe winner Torres as the real-life figure Eunice Paiva, whose husband Rubens Paiva disappeared in the early years of the Brazilian military dictatorship. The film follows Paiva and her children in the aftermath of the beloved patriarch’s sudden arrest.
In her review for Deadline, Stephanie Bunbury called it “ultimately a celebration of Brazil — not only of the resilience of its liberalism under tyrannical rulers, but of its sunlight, its carnival spirit and the delicious blue of the sea that rolls onto Rio de Janeiro’s broad beaches.”
It’s currently Carnaval in Rio, where the ceremony is being broadcast for revelers in the streets.
After world premiering in Venice, where it won the Best Screenplay prize, I’m Still Here became a box office phenom in Brazil, grossing $18.5M through today via Sony. Global box office is now $30M..
Other films vying in the International Feature category this evening included Emilia Pérez, The Girl with the Needle, The Seed of the Sacred Fig and Flow.
pmcCnx.cmd.push(function() { pmcCnx({ settings: { plugins: { pmcAtlasMG: { iabPlcmt: 1, }, pmcCnx: { singleAutoPlay: 'auto' } } }, playerId: "32fe25c4-79aa-406a-af44-69b41e969e71", mediaId: "1277bad5-9754-4c8b-b173-b86a79e08ba5", }).render("connatix_player_1277bad5-9754-4c8b-b173-b86a79e08ba5_14"); });
Best of Deadline
Sign up for Deadline's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Solve the daily Crossword
